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Paul Hembery on designing tyres for 2014: “We’d have to get a renewal [if we were going to change it] and it’s about how relevant any of the past or current cars will be to 2014. So the work for 2014, by and large, I believe will be done by a simulator.”

“I think the first point to be clear on is that Niki Lauda is in charge. He clearly doesn’t understand the non-executive part of his title, which is meant to be non-executive chairman because he’s been acting very much as an executive chairman.”

Gray: “I’d like to see live updates to the grid [in their F1 games] over a Grand Prix weekend. When I was growing up I used to spend hour re-arranging the grid to reflect the results of qualifying so that I could run the race myself at home before the real thing.”

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Looks like Lotus will be first to launch their 2013 car – the wraps come off the E21 on Monday (28th) at their factory. #F1

Comment of the day

If his arm heals, I don?óÔé¼Ôäót think he’ll have a problem finding a seat. Obviously he’d have to prove himself in a midfield car at best, but as he has said himself, he doesn’t seem to have lost much, if any, speed. I don’t think a team like Sauber or Force India would say no to the services of Kubica.

I don?óÔé¼Ôäót see Kubica paying for a seat, but I?óÔé¼Ôäóm sure he would be fine driving for pennies. With Hulkenberg being likely to end up at Ferrari, there could be a seat at Sauber with Gutierrez providing a significant amount of cash and Force India, unless in absolutely dire need of money, should go for him rather than Bianchi/Sutil.

Of course, he would be rusty, and therefore he should be aiming at 2014 which promises a more equal playing field regarding experience as the cars will be new. Importantly, I think he should be trying to do DTM rather than the European Rally Championship ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ if he under-performs, he can always go back to rallying, but at this point I don?óÔé¼Ôäót think he should give up on F1.

If he?óÔé¼Ôäós capable of driving an F1 car and as quick and consistent as he used to, the benefits of employing him rather than some Johnny Cecotto Jnr with heaps of money should outweigh the risk and financial drawback associated with it. I think Frank Williams would concur with that.@Victor

Federal, not state. Its amazing stupid how they just splash the losses of the event but neglect to inform how overall tourism has fared. Personally, and this is coming from a Melbournian, we don’t deserve the race. Id much prefer to lose it to another city that puts in the effort than keep hearing the whining.

Elections are next year for Victoria (the state that runs the race) and this year is the Federal election which wont have much to do with the race@Mike dont worry thats how they always run the paper. Come Grand Prix week it will be full of previews and news and full of praise. When everyone settles down out comes an article about the cost and how stupid it is to have a GP in Melbourne

I think $50m of taxpayers money is worth a story, it is up to the Govt. to defend the expense with analysis of financial and status benefits. Would you be so sanguine about this amount of money being spent on a sport you are not interested in,? particularly when half that fee goes straight to the owners of the F1 brand as pure profit.

Really worried about Lotus in 2013. They running dried of money since summer 2012 and halted their car development programme. During that period, the team was almost sold to new owner, but the deal falls.

With 2013 and 2014 car project running simultaneously, i dont think they stand a chance to fight with top 3.

@kanman1 I’m going to go ahead and remind you that they signed a contract with Coca Cola last year, and there were strong rumours of a deal with Honeywell (not sure if it was confirmed). With that in mind, I don’t think they’ll be in any major financial trouble.

@prisoner-monkeys That’s interesting. However, if they can produce a car similar in performance to last year’s, they should theoretically do better for obvious reasons (RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen and Grosjean getting used to the team and all that).

@prisoner-monkeys Normally that statement would be almost tautological, but actually this/last year it may not even be true. In general you’d expect the fastest car (ie, the McLaren in 2012) to win at least one championship, especially given they also had one of the best drivers.

running dried of money since summer 2012 and halted their car development programme

Where are you getting this from?

It certainly didn’t look like their car development programme had stopped, they were experimenting with Double DRS and successfully added a Coanda exhaust in the second half of the year which included several refinements.

Lotus with a bang, as usual. Jan 28th, Friday then. Nine new cars in nine days. Cheeky move on the engine sound – a gold mine for game modders, I guess – although deep inside I wanted them to leave this move to the all-new 2014 engine. Hearing it first this way would have been (or would be) cool. (@andrewtanner beat me with this expectation.)

I don’t agree with the COTD. That Kubics himself claims he did not lose any speed is one thing. In F1 nuances make the difference, we should all know that. I mean the difference between the very good and the average or ‘just’ simply good driver. Look at Massa – he has been in imperious form for a year-and-a-half before his injury, and then kind of ‘lost it’. Same goes for Panis in 1997. Of course, it has not had to be this way – take Schumacher’s injury from 1999. But the news on just how difficult it was to basically recreate Robert’s arm, not to mention to reach the same functionality as it enjoyed before, suggests to me that this injury, in its consequences, might be greater that Massa’s was.

@atticus-2 I read in an article (which appeared in the F1 round up a month ago I think) that the difference of a DTM or rally car’s wheel with an F1 steering wheel is basically on 2 aspects: too many buttons in the F1 wheel, and too little space to move your arms and hands in the F1 cockpit. The experts’ opinion is that, because of Kubica’s injured arm, he has lost much of his precision with that arm. So pressing the buttons it’s quite hard for him, as well as giving the exact turn to the wheel to be fast in the turns.

Not sure if this was mentioned yesterday, but I have a query about the 2013 tyres. As they’re softer (for increased lap time) and also degrade faster (for more pitsops), aren’t we going to see the same tyre management tactics we have for the last few years? By which I mean, not going any faster at all?